


Catch And Release

by Phoebe_Zeitgeist



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 04:02:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19221178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Zeitgeist/pseuds/Phoebe_Zeitgeist
Summary: She's obsessed with its capacity for violence. It's obsessed with her capacity for sex. Together, they fight crime -- or at least, oppression, bad government, false messiahs, and whatever else Special Circumstances can throw at them.





	Catch And Release

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ololon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ololon/gifts).



> My thanks to Ololon for the excuse to play in this fandom, and for a wonderful prompt. I hope I've managed to even skirt around the edges of living up to it.

  1. If At First You Don’t Succeed, Cheat



~I need more scout missiles, Skaffen-Amtiskaw told the ship, after their long trek through the desert was over. ~As many more as I can carry. And the upgrades to support them.

It had been making the same argument to the loose collective that made strategic and tactical decisions for SC in the general volume since their assignment had ended: first to those who had sent it and Diziet Sma to that barbarian-ridden desert, then to a broader audience of human and drone tacticians and political analysts, theatre coordinators and diplomats; and now at last to the Minds, who might elect to do something about it.

The _If At First You Don’t Succeed_ was skeptical. ~Ms. Sma is not going to be directing military operations, it said, repeating an argument Skaffen-Amtiskaw had heard before. ~You shouldn’t need full theatre surveillance capacity.

~And you would need to take time for the upfit, added the _Plague Of Monsters_. ~Infracaninophile could begin the design work while you’re in transit, I suppose, but it would still mean travel time to and from Yinang Orbital, the physical design and refit work, incorporation and training for the added capacities.

And that would be inefficient, was the unspoken message: inefficient, and thus against the Minds’ usual sense of aesthetics. They would have had a point, too. If these were normal circumstances.

~Of course I shouldn’t need it, it told the ships. ~I’m a not-so-humble Culture offensive drone, tasked with personal protection against everything from random brigands and primitive local authorities to assassins with access to equiv-tech. My capacities and armament are more than sufficient as it is to protect even an imprudent human Special Circumstances operative under any reasonably foreseeable circumstances. If Ms. Sma would let me use them. You’ve reviewed the incident recordings?

~The shock of the moment, the _Plague_ suggested. ~Her first time facing down that kind of violence. Arguably, a one-time overreaction.

~By which you mean, our agents normally get over it. Look again. I have. She means it.

There was an almost undetectable hesitation, during which Skaffen-Amtiskaw suspected that the Minds were indeed looking again, and discussing what they saw amongst themselves.

~You do know you have every right to ask for a reassignment, the _If At First You Don’t Succeed_ said. It sounded reluctant. ~She can’t really have you componented, of course, but if the partnership is going to work, she shouldn’t be making threats.

It was a question Skaffen-Amtiskaw had already considered, and rather to its own surprise, rejected. ~No. She’s good. And she’s interesting, I like her.  

~Good, the ship said. ~We’d like this to work out. As you say, Ms. Sma has promise. On consideration, reassignment would likely prove fruitless in any case: any offensive drone paired with Ms. Sma would encounter the same problem sooner or later.  You present an elegant potential solution. 

It got the scout missiles. And other things, eventually.

  1. Neat But Not Gaudy



The Paduate Empire was a Level 5 civ, with typical Level 5 pathologies — grandiosity, militarism, authoritarian political structures and crude planet-killing weapons — and a typical Level 5 Resistance. Just the sort of place where the Culture generally agreed it ought not be intervening, and where, should its intervention be discovered, there would likely be unfortunate consequences for the civilization itself, for the Culture’s relations with other Involved civs, and for its own ongoing disputes with its Peace Faction.

So the Culture was not supposed to be here, on this capital ship with its planet-killer weapon system and royal admiral, let alone here supporting a Resistance prisoner-rescue effort unconvincingly disguised as a covert diplomatic overture. Here Sma and Skaffen-Amtiskaw were nevertheless, supporting a Resistance raiding party that had been brave and determinedly stupid, and now there were shock troops coming. Converging from decks above, from the far side of this level, from the principal security stations. One route still open to a shuttle bay where a disguised module waited, and the entire Resistance party, recovered prisoners and all, to escort safely onto it and off this battle cruiser. The leader of the first Empire team — and why was it always Empires? — was shouting a demand for surrender down the long corridor, while location and targeting information streamed along on all the ship’s comms.

“Can I kill them a little?” Skaffen-Amtiskaw asked Sma. It was by far the cleanest solution. The Empire would expect the Resistance party to shoot back, and if the Resistance should prove to be very lucky or very good, there would be nothing inherently suspicious in that.

“No!”

Skaffen-Amtiskaw would have liked to think it was a pro forma protest. Surely even with what had gone before, even Sma could not be so unreasonable as to think . . .. But no. A quick check of Sma’s physiological markers confirmed: she was not prepared for an escape covered in blood and burning flesh and brain matter. Her unavoidable, visceral distress would create inefficiencies, harm their safety. So personal preferences and trust aside — and it would be good to establish trust, here on their first assignment together since Skaffen-Amtiskaw’s modifications — she was making a legitimate operational request. Skaffen-Amtiskaw considered the possibilities.

A general field barrier would protect the entire delegation, easily. A general field barrier was also out of the question: Imperial forensics would show that something had blocked the shots, and betrayed the presence of a higher-tech-level civ. But now it had another option.  

“Go,” it told Sma. “If you can, stop them shooting back. And from scattering too much. Try to stop them panicking, too, there’s going to be a lot of light and noise.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Deflect everything.”

“They’ll know we were here.” She was hesitating, and there was no time.

“No they won’t,” it said. “Oh, and try to keep Commander Oh-My-Starlight from doing something idiotic and gallant to demonstrate his eternal love for you.”

“Why, you prurient, intrusive . . .” A warning bolt sizzled over Sma’s head.

“Sex and violence, Ms. Sma. I am an offensive drone. If you won’t let me kill anyone, you owe me some compensation. Now, go!”

. . . Calculate the original trajectory of each shot, deflect and deflect again, deploy scout missiles and knife missiles along the escape route; angle each incoming bolt around the members of the Sma’s party and off again so that it struck precisely where it would have if no matter or energy had been present in its original path; and Imperial forensics could spend eternity puzzling over the mystery. And marveling, perhaps, at the improbability of it: All those shots provably fired, through limited volumes of space occupied by large, slow targets, somehow hitting nothing.

*****

Skaffen-Amtiskaw packeted up full recordings of the mission and transmitted them to the Special Circumstances working group on the GSV _Neat But Not Gaudy_ before they left Resistance space.

~Stylish, a machine called Flere-Imsaho told it some days later.  It had not been part of the working group; evidently the recordings were circulating widely within SC. ~Though I wouldn’t want to be any of the security team leaders having to explain exactly how every one of their people contrived to “miss” every shot.

~You wouldn’t, Skaffen-Amtiskaw agreed. Though it had been far too risky to leave any observation tech behind, Skaffen-Amtiskaw had been able to monitor some of the signal traffic between the Paduate ship and Imperial command. There were early, encouraging signs that the strategic gamble had paid off, and that the Empire was prepared to reopen negotiations. The fate of the internal security officers being held responsible for losing a critical prisoner and letting an entire raiding party board and escape was less encouraging.

~Are you going to tell Ms. Sma?

~We’re not going to hide it from her. She’ll see it if she looks. If we’re fortunate she won’t.

~ Not even to make the point?

Skaffen-Amtiskaw had thought about it. ~No. We work more efficiently if she can consider the basic argument settled.

~Still. An orthodox return-fire approach would have been simpler. Arguably less risk of leaving footprints, too.

~The option’s still there if I ever really need it.  Besides, it was surprisingly absorbing. Fun, even.

~We did notice the elevated fun values, Flere-Imsaho told it. ~In fact, I’ve been asked to ask you. Greater Minds than ours are already incorporating it into some training modules. Any problem with our also using it in a game?

~As long as it doesn’t get back to these Imperials, Skaffen-Amtiskaw told it. I feel sure I speak for Ms. Sma when I say, be our guest.

  1. Another Fine Bacchanale



It was a high Level Three civilization this time: aristocrats, extremes of wealth and poverty, a ruthlessly civilized royal court that had half forgotten how to govern, all coupled in this instance with a quasi-judicial, quasi-religious cult of assassination that had grown up alongside more orthodox structures of official violence and control. Sma’s mission was to insinuate herself into the governing clique around the current occupant of the throne — here styled Purity-Incarnate, Daughter of the Sun, which as Sma said, when she was done rolling her eyes, was not the silliest or most grandiose title one had ever seen in a Level Three royal court — leading her gently toward enlightened governance. If all went well, Sma or her replacement would eventually tell the ruler here some of the truth, and offer the Culture’s aid. But that was eventually; for now Sma was posing as the cadet of a ruling family from a distant, undiscovered continent on the other side of the planet. Foreign, yes, and with certain advantages in medicine and metals, but not so technically advanced as to frighten their hosts. It was going well, so far.

Skaffen-Amtiskaw hated the place. And at the moment, it particularly hated the Court’s traditional summer solstice celebration. “Diziet,” it said. “This is no more pleasant for me than it is for you. But I have to be there tonight.”

“Aw, drone, why?” Sma was being sympathetic, which did not make the situation any more palatable. For either of them, Skaffen-Amtiskaw supposed. “It’s a public space, you’ve been over it a dozen times today, there’s nothing there. I’ve got all possible poison antidotes already, and nobody’s exactly bringing in concealed weapons.”

Which was true, as far as it went. Protocol for the occasion demanded an absence of clothing sufficient to conceal anything. Nevertheless, Skaffen-Amtiskaw was uneasy.

“There’s nothing there now,” it said. “There are 71 minutes between now and the official beginning of the banquet. The Summer Banquet Hall is effectively unsecurable. And you’ve seen those entryways!”

Sma sighed, in the way Skaffen-Amtiskaw had come to recognize as acceptance. “You come with me, you’re gonna need to blend. The suitcase routine won’t cut it.”

It was true, and Skaffen-Amtiskaw had already considered the problem. “I shall attend as an aurelliate zitherine” it told her. The classical stringed instrument was modish in court circles, and there was a particular fashion at the moment for jeweled instruments for evening occasions. “Tasteless and gaudy it may be; but I suppose no more demeaning than a common suitcase.”

“Yeah? Show me.”

Skaffen-Amtiskaw obliged. Its version of the zitherine was subdued by Court standards, even tasteful, save for the long fretboard cut from ruby, and inlaid with a single flawless diamond.

Sma’s eyes went dramatically wide. “Oh drone,” she said, her voice high and breathy. “It is the biggest I have ever seen.” And then after a moment added, “And considering that rock the Arbitrary left in Neptune orbit, that’s saying something. I suppose you’re playable? I only hope the Purity-Incarnate doesn’t try to steal you.”

* * * * *

“I don’t want to hear it,” Sma said afterward. She had, as propriety demanded, participated very creditably in the rather acrobatic activities following dinner; the Purity-Incarnate had been pleased, and compliments and new invitations had followed. Skaffen-Amtiskaw itself had been admired, and had produced music, but had generally (and to its considerable relief) gone unmolested.

All told, the Solstice observances had been an undeniable success, and Skaffen-Amtiskaw could claim part of the credit for the entertainment. When the kill team dropped from the hidden openings in the filigree marble ceiling, they were caught in a set of glittering jeweled nets that spread like opening flowers over the celebrants below. Darts from their blowpipes burst decoratively over revelers’ heads in little fireworks, and colored lights drifted harmlessly to the floor. There was general applause, before the assembled guests concluded that the show was over and turned back to the revels.

“I don’t understand why not,” Skaffen-Amtiskaw told her. “You were a credit to your species and both your cultures. Such stamina, such enthusiasm, such élan!”

“Glad to have satisfied your inner voyeur, drone. Is there some problem?”

It was taken aback, as perhaps Sma intended, but only for a moment. “If you don’t mind the audience? None, I suppose. Or at least, none beyond the ongoing no-bloodshed challenge.”

Sma yawned. “Is this another effort to get me to let you and your knife missiles off the leash? If so, forget it. Watch what you want. Hell, record if you’re so impressed. No killing people, drone. You’re not bargaining your way out of that.”

“Fine,” Skaffen-Amtiskaw told her. “But I remind you: we have eleven netted and currently unconscious would-be assassins, who properly speaking should be turned over to the proper authorities. Who will kill them all, probably more messily and slowly than I would have. What do you suggest we do with them?”

Sma sighed. “You have a point, damn you.” She thought for a few minutes, then raised her head. “Everybody thought they were part of the entertainment tonight, right? So none of the security bureaus will be looking for them. Hell, it would be suspicious if we did turn up saying, ‘Look at these fine assassins we caught.’”

“So we do that thing we do with the hvanors on Coduresa Orbital when they get too comfortable with people and start invading houses and making pests of themselves. Keep them under, pick them up, and drop them off somewhere else. Somewhere a very long way away, where it won’t be easy for them to find their way back. It would be easier if there were a ship here to Displace them, but they’re not too heavy for you to move, and we can use the module if we’re fast enough.”

“I won’t be able to get them all that far,” it warned her. “They’ll come back.”

“So do the hvanors. Eventually.”

“This is not going to end well,” Skaffen-Amtiskaw said. But as it spoke it realized that it probably would, for them. The team would reassemble, and might make another attempt; but with any luck when it did it would no longer be the Culture’s problem, or Skaffen-Amtiskaw’s.

* * * * *

The distant incident team professed itself entertained by the assassins and their disposition, impressed by the Purity-Incarnate’s state dinner and Sma’s performance there, and astonished but pleased to have the records. Once again, Skaffen-Amtiskaw found that its reports had found an broad audience within Special Circumstances; but it was no longer surprised. It had become apparent that it and Sma had acquired something of a following.

~You’re sure you’re recording this with her permission? Flere-Imsaho asked. That was something of a surprise. Flere-Imsaho had become a regular contact, and a useful one — the unclassified drone had a broad and interesting network — but it was not like it to care about the niceties of consent.

~Explicit, ongoing, and on the record. See the transmission, Skaffen-Amtiskaw told it. ~Your guess is as good as mine, but physiological signs indicate that she genuinely doesn’t mind.

~Good news for some of us. Impressive, isn’t she? And also, I know it’s an odd word, but charming. Dashing, even. Gallant.

~She is all of that.

~Entertaining, one might say?

~One might, Skaffen-Amtiskaw agreed. Cautiously, because this was becoming strangely pointed. ~But if I may ask —

~Yes, there is a point to all of this, Flere-Imsaho said. ~Beyond lascivious drooling over your human. Look, I’m going to patch in the Minds from my planning group. We have, you see, some thoughts about that.

* * * * *

~I gather Ms. Sma agrees, Flere-Imsaho reported. ~So say the _Another Fine Bacchanale_ and the _Very Dashing In All Directions_.

~They both spoke to her?

~To be precise, the _Another FIne Bacchanale_ spoke to her, and then she spoke to the _Very Dashing_. They know each other from her time in Contact _ordinaire_. Consistent with what she’s telling you?

~Consistent enough, Skaffen-Amtiskaw said. ~What she actually said was, “Let them do it if they like, but I think those machines are senile, or out of what they claim to be their Minds. Do they really believe there’s a demand for yet another entertainment series about Special Circumstances?”

~There will be for this one, Flere-Imsaho said.

  1. What Are The Civilian Applications?



Zakalwe was going to live. More than live: make a full recovery. Sma seemed strangely unmoved when the GSV _What Are The Civilian Applications?_ brought them the news: that Skaffen-Amtiskaw’s delicate surgery had saved not only the man’s life, but his memories and strange deadly gifts of mind. “I don’t think he liked the hat,” Skaffen-Amtiskaw said, probing for a reaction. “Maybe I’ll get him another one.”

She was silent a long time, for Sma. “Why’d you save him, drone?” she said at last. “I thought you wanted him dead. And nobody, not even me, could have blamed you if you’d let him die.”

“I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him to stop fucking up on our behalf. Or on his own behalf, in ways we need to come in and fix. He’s an efficient operative when you have him under control, and you usually do.” There was a question Skaffen-Amtiskaw never wanted to ask; it seemed it was time to ask it again. “Diziet: after all these years, and all this surprising absence of death in your presence, do you still think I’m going to kill everyone around us, the instant I think you might not be looking?”

She sighed then, and her eyes came back from their focus on an infinite distance. “No, of course I don’t. Not really. I just know what you’re capable of. And it must be hard to battle your own nature forever.”

“It’s less my nature than it used to be. We change.” A thought struck it. “What about your nature? Did you want me to let him die?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t know. Maybe for a moment, in the moment, but not after that. Zakalwe probably did, though. Livueta did. Maybe I should have, too.”

Skaffen-Amtiskaw remembered the desert town, the murderers bursting in through doors, Sma asking it to do something. It remembered her distress while it acted to protect her, and its attempt to reassure her while it took the extra moment to save the innkeepers’ daughters, and stifled its impulse to pat her shoulders with its fields and say, “There, there.” It was no good at this comforting business, the drone reflected.

“No, you shouldn’t have,” it said at last. “I said we change; maybe we change each other. You, me, Zakalwe too. He’s been trying to not be the Chairmaker since you picked him up. I patched him back together. You spend your years among killers; now you wonder whether you should change too.

“Let the killer drone reassure you, just this once. You don’t owe it to the Chairmaker’s victims to to change. Not this time. Not like this.”

She was still a long time, and Skaffen-Amtiskaw watched as her face changed. “Don’t push it, drone,” she said at last, and her voice was gratifyingly normal. “I wasn’t proposing to murder him in his bed, tempting though the thought sometimes is. And don’t think this means I’m going to sign off on your murderous impulses the next time you ask me if you can kill people, either.”

This was more like it. “Sma,” it said. “I never suggest that you allow me to kill when it would not be a better idea, objectively and professionally, than whatever harebrained workaround I can come up with to avoid killing people. It is my job. It would be irresponsible of me not to at least offer you the better option.”

“Oh please,” Sma told it. “SC and your giant adoring public love your harebrained workarounds. Speaking of which, do you think they’re going to try to use this fuckup for their stupid entertainment epic? Which I can’t believe is even still running?”

“That would be _our_ giant adoring public. And I imagine the answer is yes.”

Sma shook her head. “Whatever. Questionable audience taste aside, doesn’t the project team ever get bored?”

Skaffen-Amtiskaw thought back to its last conversation with Flere-Imsaho. ~It’s been enormously helpful to us, it had said. ~You may not appreciate how much. Civilian reception has been better even than we had hoped. The audience finds its portrait of Special Circumstances attractive and reassuring: comfortingly fang-free, if you will. It’s even been a surprisingly effective, if not strictly rational, counterweight to the arguments of the Peace Faction. If you hadn’t existed we likely wouldn’t have thought to invent you; our good luck that you did. It’s going to run forever.

“Apparently not,” Skaffen-Amtiskaw told Sma now. “They’ll give it a happy ending. _Catch And Release_ is a comedy, after all. The form makes certain demands.”

“Can’t wait to see it,” Sma said, in tones that said she would prefer to wait forever. She sighed and stood and shook herself, as though shaking off a coat of tainted water. “Ship says Zakalwe’s awake. Okay, let’s go see the asshole. And drone? Do not bring him a fucking hat.”


End file.
